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That deadline won’t necessarily mean the immediate end of a long and honoured game. Instead, it will suffer death by a thousand cuts and every member of the industry — owners, trainers, breeders and suppliers — is bleeding.

Start with the horses; on the standardbred side, at least, the breeding numbers are distressing.

“Two years ago in Ontario, there were 5,800 mares bred,” said Jody Jamieson, one of Canada’s top drivers who works the committee rooms non-stop for his game. “Last year, after the first announcements, there were about 3,900. This year, there are about 1,000 mares booked to be bred. People for years have been talking about a horse shortage. Well, look how right they’re going to be.’’

Those 1,000 mares will produce, on average, about 700 living foals. Where, in five years, will racing stock come from, since the breeding business has been crushed?

Seelster Farms, in Lucan, Ont., one of Canada’s largest and most successful standardbred nurseries, reported 652 stallion breedings in 2011, then 474 last year. This year, with two fewer stallions, there are 169 mares booked. At Winbak Farms in Caledon, seven stallions are booked to 230 mares; a year ago 10 stallions serviced 593 mares. Multiply the trend across the province. Plus, try getting — or even keeping — a breeding farm job.

At Woodbine, future Hall of Fame trainer Ben Wallace notes his powerful stable, once 45 to 50 horses, has been cut to about 30. He employs a dozen people; it used to be “upward of 20.”

“I have owners who want to buy horses, but in another jurisdiction,’’ Wallace said. “There’s such a cloud of uncertainty here. So they’ll go elsewhere and pay taxes there and spend their money there.”

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Trainer John Kopas has gone from 25 horses to about half that. Trainer Anthony Montini, his stable around 15 (down from 18), said, “I’m very cautious right now. I’ve bought high-priced horses in the past, but six-figure horses? No way. My owners are backing off, too. They want to wait and see what happens.”

Horsemen and women were clinging to hopes in recent days that a backtrack from Queen’s Park — an extension of the SARP agreement, or at least a slowdown of its cancellation — would throw them a lifeline beyond the temporary “transition payments” negotiated with each track. There was some political grandstanding from opposition opportunists trying to score a few rural Brownie points with actions that come a year late. A non-binding motion Thursday to slow down the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corp.’s out-of-control “modernization” plan, with its ludicrous infatuation with bingo halls and American-owned casinos, split the legislature vote down party lines.

The Liberals clearly have no interest in listening to facts provided by independent research and refuse to negotiate with horsemen directly, dealing only with track operators and hiding all details from the taxpaying public. They are bulling ahead, misrepresenting their benevolence while damaging thousands of lives and — here’s the most insane part — ultimately costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Four tracks are already closed and cutbacks are everywhere else (Woodbine, remember, laid off more than 100 employees). Given that slots churn about 15 per cent less revenue without racing; given the millions in taxes lost on shrinking parimutuels wagering; given the cost of jobs retraining and unemployment insurance and welfare that will be necessary; given the lost tax revenues from horses and feed and equipment not sold; given lost revenues from those who leave the country to race elsewhere; given plenty more abandoned revenues and social costs, the annual $345 million that was racing’s share of the slots agreement will be a fraction of what this decision will cost Ontario taxpayers each year going forward.

Yet the axe still falls at Sunday midnight.

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It is shameful.

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